4 comments:

i am surprised that a Church would ever be willing to host this...they must be getting a big fee for hiring out the hall. We , as a society, must be willing to speak up against unnatural taking of life . We need to demand that our tax dollar provide us with superior end of life care. Life is to be respected and treasured from conception to natural death.

Mary, It's a Unitarian church. Not a Catholic one. Unitarians are all about individual choices in everything, including life and death. And Right To Die is right up their alley.

But I have to admit to being a little puzzled. Why are we importing this "expert" when we can find out exactly the same information ourselves with just a little effort? It's not like suicide is an unknown phenomenon.

Lady Janus..just a few observations:if u Google the word church the majority of definitions refer to it in relation to ChristiansThere is nowhere in the christian bible that it is referred to as it was a term not in use at the time of the writing of the Bible but the Bible does include the 10 Commandments (COMMANDMENTS not 10 suggestions or 10 nice ideas for a Thursday afternoon) one of which is "Thou shall not kill". Most Christians believe in the sanctity of life and that we are stewards of this gift from God and not the masters of it.A question that has often occurred to me is this"do we want to kill those whose sufferings WE cannot bare"?

"if u Google the word church the majority of definitions refer to it in relation to Christians"

I'm trying to figure out what relevance this has to the discussion at hand. Would you mind explaining? 'Cause if your point is that Unitarians do not have a church because you don't consider them to be Christians, you're wrong on both counts -- they DO have a church, and some of them DO consider themselves to be Christians.

"'Thou shall not kill.'"

Tell that to Pope Urban II, who called for all Christians to go kill Turks, and promised them instant remission of all sins as a reward for doing so. That was in the late eleventh century, and, while the targets have occasionally shifted, the religious wars have been ongoing ever since.

"A question that has often occurred to me is this'do we want to kill those whose sufferings WE cannot bare'?"

Not my question. MY question is: Why do we insist that those who suffer may not make their own decisions to end their own suffering? That which YOU might consider to be a "gift" might simply be a torture to the one who has to deal with it 24/7. And yet, you would decide that he must keep this "gift" that he does not want. Why is that? What makes your opinion of his suffering more important than his own? And what (and why) would make your choice more important to him than his? He may not (and probably does not) share your faith, your religion, your idea of god and "gifts." So why would you expect him to share your opinions about such things?